PREFERENTIAL BALLOT DEMONSTRATION

                            INSTRUCTIONS
     
                    Copyright 1996 Lucien Saumur

     The VOTING program is designed to demonstrate how a computer may
be used as a voting machine to produce the preferential ballot. This
program will also illustrate how a computer may be used to compile
the election results as a set of pairwise comparisons. Only one of
these demonstration options may be viewed at one time. To demonstrate
both options it is necessary to run the program separately for each
options.
     
     The voting process is comprised of two sub-options as follows:
     
     a) One of these sub-options will demonstrate the voting
procedure including the printing of the ballots. This demonstration
consists in the actual voting procedure.

     b) The other sub-option will demonstrate the voting procedure
without printing the ballots. This demonstration is designed to
concentrate on the voting procedure when the ballot printing has been
understood and does not need to be repeated.
     
     The computer monitor screen of the voting and demonstration
programs has been designed as simply as possible. For this reason,
the screen does not display a button explicitly dedicated to the
termination of the session. However, a facility to terminate the
session has been incorporated in the screen. It is the small square
which appears in bottom right hand corner of the screen before the
start of each operation and which disappears once the operation has
begun. The session may be terminated by clicking on this square
repeatedly.

     
     This system is comprised of the following files:

          vbrun300.dll
          voting.exe
          candid.txt
          cmdialog.vbx
          grid.vbx
          msole2.vbx
          readme.txt

     Before using this system to process a particular election, it is
necessary to create a sub-directory "c:\election\" and to move file
"candid.txt" to that directory.

     This demonstration is based on a list of seven candidates. Both
the voting and the compilation process are similar in that the
compilation is based on a data entry operation which duplicates the
voting process. While the voting process will produce a printed
ballot the compilation process will produce two matrices of pairwise
results. One matrix will reflect the results for the current ballot
while the other matrix will reflect the results for the ballots
entered to-date.
     
     For both processes, the candidates are ranked by clicking on the
candidate names in the list of unranked candidates. As a result of
this action, the machine then transfers the name and rank of the
selected candidate to the list of ranked candidates. There is no need
to rank all or any candidates. At any time during the process, the
voter may indicate, through the appropriate screen button, that all
of the candidates or that the remaining unranked candidates are
unacceptable. The voter may then continue to rank some or all of the
unacceptable candidates.

     The voter may rank one or more groups of two or more candidates
as equal by clicking on the appropriate screen button before
beginning ranking the group and after the ranking of the group has
been done. An "E" appears on the list of ranked candidates to denote
the SECOND and SUBSEQUENT equal candidates of the group. The first
candidate of the group is not shown with an "E" so that consecutive
groups will not be mistaken for a single group.

     The voter may restart the ranking process, if s/he has made a
mistake or if s/he has decided to revise his/her choice.
     
     After a ballot information has been entered satisfactorily, the
ballot or the compilation results may be produced by clicking on the
appropriate button. Each of the two matrices is displayed separately
beginning with the matrix for the current ballot. By clicking on this
screen, the matrix for the ballots to-date will be displayed; by
clicking on this screen, the voting screen will be displayed. By
clicking on this screen it is possible to review the first matrix
again. The three screens may be displayed in turn, in this manner, as
often as desired. When the review is complete, it is necessary to
return to the voting screen to enter the next ballot else to
terminate the operation.

     The content of the matrices must be interpreted as follows:
     
     The horizontal counts are the counts in favour of the candidates
while the vertical counts are the counts against the candidates. Any
candidate, who obtains at least half the votes against every other
candidate, is shown with an asterisk in the "results" column. Any
candidates, who is acceptable to at least half of the voters is shown
as "ACC" in the results column.